Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-118). / Analysis steps are proposed as an aid for establishing Lean Product Development (LPD) activities in an organization. The proposal is offered as an aid to engineering managers and process designers for coping with the unique challenges of implementing processes from their inception - for example, at a new enterprise. As such, the thesis focuses on the creation of LPD, as opposed to traditional Lean improvement activities which benefit from the perspective of hindsight of a legacy process. Without established product development processes to improve upon, the implementation of product development activities at a new venture relies on the use of foresight to instance a LPD environment in new organizations. Therefore, the paper stresses stakeholder value delivery within the specific context that an enterprise operates and competes. A generic framework for context characterization is proposed and discussed. The framework is then evaluated for its usefulness in process design activities. The analysis steps are based on literature review and case study interviews. The proposed analysis steps include: * a comprehensive definition of the business context in which the enterprise operates and competes, * a statement of goals and objectives for the product development organization based on this context, and, * a determination of appropriate behaviors to meet these goals. Traditional Lean research has typically been approached from a large-scale, complex systems, for-profit perspective. / (cont.) Unique insights are gained from the perspective of small, privately funded, new ventures. The benefits include foresight-only value objectives for product development (process creation) and uniqueness of context (i.e. resource limited, mindshare-driven). The analysis method was validated by examining process design case studies within three contexts: large-scale aerospace, industrial process monitoring, and high-technology start-up. / by Christian LaFon. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 60). / by Luis Blando. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 180-186). / Organization Sierra-Tango is employing a systematic and methodical safety framework to manage risks in all their operational and training activities. While this safety system has shown itself to be reasonably effective in curtailing the number of accidents within the organization, Organization Sierra-Tango is not resting on its laurels and is continuing efforts to refine and improve upon its safety management framework. One of the focus areas is that of enhancing vehicle safety management in training deployments.This thesis fulfills Organizations Sierra-Tango's need for systematic understanding and continuous learning to enhance vehicle safety management in training deployments. This is achieved by extending the preponderant focus on the events and symptoms of accidents, which mostly ascribe human error as the primary cause of accidents, towards a more holistic perspective of accidents by also examining the often complex and dynamic contribution of organizational policies and practices towards accidents. An extensive research process was undertaken where discussions and interviews were conducted with the organization's vehicle safety Subject Matter Experts so as to develop a better understanding of the context of vehicle accidents during training deployments. Additionally, a thorough review of Organization Sierra Tango's internal documents (accident reports, training policies, etc) and open literature on accidents and safety was performed. Two System Dynamics (SD) models were developed to synthesize the mental models from the research phase and to generate, through simulations and analysis, insights for enhancing the organization's vehicle safety framework and practices. / (cont.) The key insights drawn from the Work Management SD model are that, schedule pressure must be managed at all levels, driver workload should be relieved by increasing the number of drivers available rather than task reduction, and supervisor workload management has a larger bearing on a driver's accident resilience compared to driver workload management. The Near Miss Reporting SD model revealed that increasing the level of identity confidentiality of near miss reporters encourages reporting, reducing the severity of punitive measures is not recommended as a means to encourage near miss reporting, and the overall safety culture of the organization is a key driver of near miss reporting. / by Kelvin F. H. Lim. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / This thesis evaluates the product development process from the perspective of a multiple gas turbine engine development programs. The risk to meeting cost and schedule requirements has increased solely due to squeezing budgets and schedule to fit the "better, faster, cheaper" mold. The thesis focuses on the further risks to cost and schedule of the gas turbine product development cycle that are caused by instabilities introduced by the cyclical nature of multiple product development programs completing the cycle and new ones starting. Market and business factors influence the numbers of cycles and can not be controlled. Workload and resource-usage are not stabile within multiple product development cycles. The analysis establishes an overview of the gas turbine engine, product development process, and project management techniques employed to deliver the product to the customer within cost and schedule constraints. The analysis then uses a risk causal framework to identify the issues that the process faces relative to the cost and schedule risk. The use of this framework identifies staffing issues to be one of the key drivers of cost and schedule risk. A systems dynamic model developed in a previous Systems Design and Management thesis was adapted to represent the product development process by adding structure and calibrating the model with realistic scenarios. The model evaluates the policies that can mitigate risks identified within the given process. Recommendations are provided within a framework that enables management to decide the appropriate use of the policies recommended / by Michael R. Wright. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2009. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 60). / Rich software application functionality once constrained to the desktop is now available via the World Wide Web (WWW) with the introduction of emergent Web2.0 technologies. Leveraging the Softwareas- a-service (SaaS) model, companies can build Web-native, Operating System (OS) independent, applications usable by customers over the internet in addition to those installed natively on their computer. Effectively this enables software development companies to redirect application work cycles away from OS-specific development and, among other things, into infrastructures which encourage participation by third-party WWW developers. With these emergent technologies, and while embracing what is commonly referred to as the network-centric innovation model, companies are hoping to leverage enormous value and strategic significance by creating and protecting proprietary platforms while at the same time encouraging third-party open source development. In effect, through outward-facing Application Program Interfaces (APIs), these new models have led to the emergence and evolution of complex ecosystems within the WWW space; witness OpenSocial, Facebook, salesforce.com, Amazon, Firefox, eBay and others. eBay for one realized early-on that forging relationships with developers can support and advance its business model. Not long afterwards, http://developer.ebay.com was created giving developers access to a myriad of information on all current and expired auctions. This move enabled companies to enter the ecosystem and provide specialized services to customers based on information mined from eBay's API. / (cont.) A few of these companies provide raw analytical data to PowerSellers-those customers doing serious business on eBay. Others use the data to up-sell by listing current eBay auctions on their own websites. The goal of this thesis is to explore what constitutes an appropriate strategy for insurgents intending to enter WWW ecosystems in attempts to usurp competitors within them. This will be accomplished by looking at specific businesses, their strategic options, engineering challenges and general dilemmas while attempting to create inimitability. As well, a framework will be developed for assessing ecosystem players, their influence, understanding the dynamic interactions not only between those entities, but between them and the ecosystem host, as well. / by John A. Baker. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 75). / In today's engineering project management, there is no lack of strategies to plan and assign task items to reduce the overall project timeline. However, as the product gets more complicated and organization gets much larger, the implementation of those strategies becomes the real challenge. Operational issues such as the objectives alignment across teams, transparent and consistent vertical and horizontal communications, and unexpected requirements changes are becoming causative factors for project delay. These issues are seen particularly often in microprocessor product development. Besides its high technology complexity, microprocessor development involves huge uncertainties, frequent changes, closely coupled inter-team efforts, and iterative design processes. The cost of microprocessor project delay is huge, not only because the development process is capital intensive, but also because the demand is technology sensitive-a project delay of several months could keep a product from entering the market and kill the project. As the design process gets more matured in this industry, firms are competing on execution. This thesis argues that a great amount of execution delay comes from organizational barriers, a lack of organizational processes in situations of exception and uncertainty management and the inadequate incentive system that aligns the interests of the project with its team. The author evaluated the effectiveness of the traditional organization structure and other standard structures for this industry, and proposed an innovative hybrid organization structure, a structure that is highly leveraged, robust, scalable and efficient. A thorough comparison of the proposed organization with the traditional ones is conducted with the system tools such as Design Structure Matrix, and System Dynamics models. / by Tianlue Hou. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-122). / Recently there has been a growing interest in deploying Wireless Mesh Networks by municipalities. This interest stems from the desire to provide broadband connectivity to users lacking access to broadband alternatives. The ubiquity of these networks will create more opportunities for new wireless-based applications and services that will generate revenue to the local businesses. The current plan is primarily focusing on the use of the WiFi, which was originally designed for indoor LAN applications operating in unlicensed spectrum. Also, the Municipalities claim that their main targets are Public Safety and the low-income neighborhood that cannot afford DSL or Cable broadband. There is a doubt, however, that the current plan will deliver on its promises in terms of coverage as well as cost. In this research, the goal is to first study the current business model for the current Municipal Wireless Mesh networks under deployment. As such, we will attempt to examine the networks under development in Brookline, Boston, Cambridge, and other cities in the US. We will also examine the technical limitations of these networks. This will lead us to suggest modifications to both the business model and a new system design. The goal for these modifications is to enhance the chance of these networks to succeed in the market place. / by Mudhafar Hassan-Ali. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, February 2003. / "January 2003." / Includes bibliographical references. / by Kathleen M. Blackmore and Kelly L. Zechel. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 131-132). / Nortel Networks, a leading global supplier of telecommunications equipment, is engaged in an increasingly competitive global market place. Within this market, Nortel Networks is positioning itself as the leader of global network transformation. The vision of the new transformed network is one in which disparate network elements are converged onto single architectural platforms serving the Client, Wireless Access, Network Services, Multi-services Packet, VoIP, Multi-services Optical and Element Management aspects of the newly transformed network architecture. This paper focuses specifically on the hardware development process associated with the CDMA wireless access element referred to as a base transceiver station (BTS) in the transformed network. The effect of part commonality on product development lead times are investigated at four levels of integration: common part (ASIC), common assembly (circuit pack), common field replaceable unit (module) and finally the common platform (BTS). At increasing levels of integration, the use of common parts leads to longer product development lead times. This observation is examined using two methodologies. The first methodology utilizes the three lenses framework focusing primarily on the impacts of organizational structure on the product development process. An evaluation of the existing barriers preventing joint gains and acceptable compromises to be achieved amongst share holders in joint development programs is discussed. Methods by which to minimize the impact of organizational structure on common product development lead time are given and comparisons are made with alternate organizational models from within the telecommunications industry. The second methodology employed utilizes task / (cont.) design structure matrices (DSM) to analyze the implication of part commonality on product development lead times for projects structured in accordance with the Nortel Networks Life Cycle Management model. Effects modeled include stochastic durations, probabilistic iterations, learning effects, resource constraints, parallel tasks and overlapping tasks. An evaluation of the results indicates an increased sensitivity to extended product development lead times associated with probabilistic iterations. This is shown to be particularly evident during the requirements definition phase in which multiple stakeholder requirements must be captured comprehensively. This sensitivity is amplified by the fact that product verification takes place in multiple labs each exercising the equipment in unique and un-accounted for configurations. Based on the above analysis, a framework to ascertain the optimum level of commonality to pursue on a given product is given. / by Nicholas Svensson. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 85). / Money laundering is a huge problem that is faced by financial institutions and banks are mandated by the government to have strict policies and procedures towards anti-money laundering reporting. The outcome of a complex investigation process is a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) which is used by Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) to trace back criminals and to curb the money laundering activities. This thesis work involves developing a quality rating methodology for SAR reporting at the bank and rates the critical elements in determining the quality of a SAR. The results of the quality scoring mechanism have been validated by using Multivariate tools and techniques. Mahalanobis- Taguchi Strategy (MTS) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) were used to come up with the measurement scale to distinguish the good and bad SARs and PCA was used to list the critical elements that were listed by the MTS approach. The results of the analysis were presented towards the end of the thesis and this methodology can be used to determine the quality rating of SARs. / by Srinivasan Nallasivan. / S.M.